![\"Google,](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2020\/02\/05\/17\/24354446-7970371-image-m-52_1580923289116.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy: Matt Romano<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In September of last year, I wrote about law enforcement\u2019s growing use of facial recognition technology and the need for federal regulation on the issue.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Last month, Kashmir Hill of the New York Times reported on one facial recognition app in particular that led a privacy professor at Stanford Law to state, \u201cAbsent a very strong privacy law, we\u2019re all screwed.\u201d[2]<\/a> The app is called Clearview AI, and it is now being used by over six hundred law enforcement agencies around the country ranging from local cops to the FBI.[3]<\/a> Using Clearview AI, law enforcement input an image of a suspect or victim, and it is compared to a database of images to find a match.[4]<\/a> What separates this app from other facial recognition software used by law enforcement is where the images in the database come from.[5]<\/a> \u00a0Unlike other image databases that are compiled of mugshots or drivers licenses photos, Clearview AI scrapes image of people from millions of websites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Venmo.[6]<\/a> This method of colleting images has allowed the app to create a database that dwarfs all other databases on the market with over 3 billion images.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n Facebook and other social media sites prohibit scraping users\u2019 images like this in their terms of service, but Clearview is doing it anyway.[8]<\/a>\u00a0 In defense of his company\u2019s actions, the app\u2019s creator Hoan Ton-That claims that the company has a First Amendment right to access data in the public domain.[9]<\/a>\u00a0 Since this statement and Hill\u2019s article, Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter have all sent cease-and-desist letters to Clearview demanding it to stop scraping from their sites.[10]<\/a> So we will probably find out soon if Ton-That is right. In the meantime, it is pretty safe to assume that if you\u2019re on social media, your image is in Clearview\u2019s database.\u00a0 When Hill\u2019s image was run through the app, it returned several results, including photos she had never even seen before.[11]<\/a><\/p>\n There is no denying that law enforcement having access to Clearview\u2019s database will help them identify more suspects and victims.\u00a0 In one instance, the Indiana State police identified a suspect in a shooting within twenty minutes of experimenting with the app.[12]<\/a> The shooter didn\u2019t have a driver\u2019s license or criminal record, so government database were useless.[13]<\/a> The app was able to match an image of him to a video on the internet that had his name in the description.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n Along with the obvious privacy concerns, the app\u2019s algorithm has never been tested by an independent party such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, so it is unclear how accurate it is.[15]<\/a>\u00a0 A researcher at Georgetown University\u2019s Center on Privacy and Technology emphasized that \u201cthe larger the database, the larger the risk of misidentification because of the doppelg\u00e4nger effect.\u201d[16]<\/a>\u00a0 There is also the concern over whether law enforcement agencies using a database like this is legal.[17]<\/a>\u00a0 Clearview\u2019s lawyer sent out a memo to prospective clients in August ensuring them that law enforcement agencies \u201cdo not violate the federal Constitution or relevant existing state biometric and privacy laws when using Clearview for its intended purpose.\u201d[18]<\/a>\u00a0 A man in Illinois disagrees and has filed a class action lawsuit against the company for violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.[19]<\/a>\u00a0 Maybe all this litigation involving Clearview will encourage for the federal government to make regulating law enforcement\u2019s use of facial recognition a priority.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Matt Romano, Lack of Federal Regulations as the Deployment of Facial Recognition Technology Increases Results in Drastic Measures<\/em>, U. Rich. J. L. & Tech. Blog (Sept. 30, 2019), https:\/\/jolt.richmond.edu\/2019\/09\/30\/lack-of-federal-regulations-as-the-deployment-of-facial-recognition-technology-increases-results-in-drastic-measures\/<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Kashmir Hill, The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It<\/em>, N.Y. Times (Jan 18, 2020), https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/18\/technology\/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [4]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [5]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [6]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [7]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [8]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Charlie Wood, Facebook Has Sent Cease-and-Desist Letter to Facial Recognition Start-Up Clearview AI for Scraping Billions of Photos<\/em>, Business Insider (Feb. 6, 2020), https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/facebook-cease-desist-letter-facial-recognition-cleaview-ai-photo-scraping-2020-2.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> See id. <\/em><\/p>\n [11]<\/a> Kashmir Hill, The Secretive Company That Might End Privacy as We Know It<\/em>, N.Y. Times (Jan 18, 2020), https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/18\/technology\/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html.<\/p>\n [12]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [13]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [14]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [15]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [16]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n [17]<\/a> See id.<\/em><\/p>\n